A Career Worth Remembering
Joanna Moore's later years were complicated by addiction, family difficulties and a career that gradually slipped away. But concentrating only on what went wrong obscures what came first: a remarkably busy 1960s run in movies and television. She acted with Elvis Presley, Andy Griffith, Paul Muni, James Caan and Steve McQueen and appeared on many of television's biggest shows. Her accomplishments deserve another look.
Screenshot of Joanna Moore in 'The Fugitive', episode
Tragedy Came Early
Born Dorothy Joanne Cook in Georgia on November 10, 1934, Moore experienced devastating loss as a child. A 1941 automobile accident killed her mother and younger sister, while her father died from his injuries the following year. After living with her grandmother, she was adopted by another family and eventually took the name Joanna.
ABC Television, Wikimedia Commons
Georgia To Hollywood
After a brief teenage marriage, Moore attended Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. Accounts of her early career say she won a local beauty contest and went to Hollywood, where a Universal producer spotted her at a party. The studio tested and signed the young actress, beginning a career that would ultimately span three decades.
Her First Film
Moore made her feature-film debut as Charlene Carroll in Richard H. Bartlett's Slim Carter (1957), starring Jock Mahoney, Julie Adams, Tim Hovey, William Hopper and Ben Johnson. AFI specifically identifies the picture as Moore's feature debut, beginning a remarkably busy stretch of movie and television work.
Screenshot from Appointment with a Shadow, Universal (1957)
Working With Orson Welles
Moore's role as Marcia Linnekar in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) was small, but the movie certainly wasn't. Welles directed, wrote and starred alongside Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff and Marlene Dietrich in the dark border-town thriller that eventually became recognized as a film-noir classic.
Universal Pictures, Wikimedia Commons
Riding With Audie Murphy
Moore continued building her Western credentials with Ride a Crooked Trail (1958), directed by Jesse Hibbs. Audie Murphy starred as outlaw Joe Maybe, while Gia Scala, Walter Matthau, Henry Silva and Moore filled out a strong supporting cast. Moore played Little Brandy, giving the young actress another credit in a genre that would become important to her television career.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
Monster On The Campus
Jack Arnold, director of such science-fiction favorites as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), directed Moore in Monster on the Campus (1958). She played Madeline Howard, fiancée of Arthur Franz's Professor Donald Blake, whose exposure to irradiated prehistoric fish blood causes a rather alarming transformation.
Screenshot from Monster on the Campus, Universal (1958)
Opposite Paul Muni
Moore entered prestigious dramatic company with Daniel Mann's The Last Angry Man (1959). Paul Muni made his final film appearance as dedicated neighborhood physician Dr. Sam Abelman, while David Wayne played television producer Woody Thrasher. Moore played Alice Taggart, giving the young actress another prominent supporting role in a prestigious production.
Screenshot from The Last Angry Man, Columbia Pictures (1959)
Television Kept Calling
Movies were only half of Moore's career. As the 1960s began, she became precisely the sort of versatile guest actress television producers needed. Her credits accumulated across crime dramas, anthologies and especially Westerns, including The Rifleman, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, The Rebel and eventually The Virginian.
Gunsmoke Remembered Her
Moore made three particularly memorable appearances on Gunsmoke, playing different characters each time. She was Colleen Tawney in "Colleen So Green," Cherry O'Dell in "Cherry Red" and Honey Dare in "Honey Pot." Recurring guest appearances like these demonstrate why Moore became such a recognizable television face even without starring in a long-running series of her own.
She Lost Her Hearing
Just as Moore's career was gathering momentum, she developed severe hearing loss associated with otosclerosis. She later recalled having to read lips to understand conversations. For an actress whose livelihood depended upon cues and dialogue, it was a formidable obstacle. Surgery in 1962 successfully restored hearing in one ear, allowing her career to continue.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
Walking On The Wild Side
Edward Dmytryk's Walk on the Wild Side (1962) surrounded Moore with an extraordinary cast: Laurence Harvey, Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter and Barbara Stanwyck. Moore played Miss Precious in the adaptation of the Nelson Algren novel, in which Harvey's Dove Linkhorn searches Depression-era New Orleans for the woman he loves. It was another substantial Hollywood production on her résumé.
Screenshot from Walk on the Wild Side, Columbia (1962)
Elvis Came Calling
One of Moore's best-remembered movie appearances arrived opposite Elvis Presley in Gordon Douglas' Follow That Dream (1962). Presley played goodhearted Toby Kwimper, whose unconventional family settles on government land in Florida. Moore played social worker Alicia Claypoole, dispatched as part of bureaucrat H. Arthur King's effort to break up the Kwimper household.
Screenshot from Follow That Dream, United Artists (1962)
Holding Her Own With Elvis
Moore's character gives Follow That Dream (1962) some of its romantic complication when Alisha becomes interested in the extremely innocent Toby. Arthur O'Connell played Pop Kwimper, Anne Helm was Holly Jones, and Simon Oakland and Jack Kruschen also appeared. For Moore, it became one of the films most strongly associated with her career.
Screenshot from Follow That Dream, United Artists (1962)
Welcome To Mayberry
Moore found perhaps her most enduring television role when she joined The Andy Griffith Show as Peggy "Peg" McMillan, a nurse who becomes Andy Taylor's girlfriend. She first appeared in "Andy's Rich Girlfriend," in which Andy becomes uncomfortable after discovering that the seemingly ordinary woman he's dating comes from a wealthy family.
Screenshot from The Andy Griffith Show, CBS (1960–1968)
Andy And Peggy
Peggy appeared in four episodes during the show's third season: "Andy's Rich Girlfriend," "Andy and Opie, Bachelors," "Barney Mends a Broken Heart" and "Opie's Rival." Moore and Andy Griffith gave the relationship an easygoing chemistry, and Peggy remains one of Andy Taylor's better-remembered romantic interests despite her surprisingly brief stay in Mayberry.
Screenshot from The Andy Griffith Show, CBS (1960–1968)
Disney Wanted Her Too
Moore joined another major Hollywood institution with Walt Disney's Son of Flubber (1963), Robert Stevenson's sequel to The Absent-Minded Professor (1961). Fred MacMurray and Nancy Olson returned as Ned and Betsy Brainard, while Moore joined a huge comic cast that included Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Ed Wynn, Paul Lynde and William Demarest. Moore played Desiree de la Roche, an old flame of Ned's whose presence makes Betsy jealous.
Screenshot from Son of Flubber, Walt Disney (1963)
A Western Leading Lady
Moore received a substantial role as Rita Dillard in William Conrad's The Man from Galveston (1963). Jeffrey Hunter played traveling Texas lawyer Timothy Higgins, who agrees to defend former sweetheart Rita after she is framed for murder. Preston Foster and James Coburn co-starred, putting Moore alongside another impressive collection of familiar Western faces.
Perry Mason And The Virginian
By 1963, Moore could move easily between television genres. She played Grace Olney in Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Reluctant Model," involving a disputed Gauguin and murder, and made multiple appearances on The Virginian, playing different characters over the course of the series.
Screenshot from Perry Mason, CBS Television (1957)
The Fugitive
Moore gave a darker performance opposite David Janssen and Claude Akins in The Fugitive episode "Never Stop Running." She played Helen Simmons, part of a group that forces Richard Kimble to treat an injured hemophiliac boy who has been kidnapped for ransom. Moore ultimately appeared in three episodes of the acclaimed series, playing different characters.
Television's Favorite Guest Star
The sheer breadth of Moore's 1960s television work is impressive. Beyond The Andy Griffith Show, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason and The Fugitive, she appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, The Virginian, The F.B.I. and numerous other series.
Screenshot from Perry Mason, CBS Television (1957)
Bewitched
Moore's gift for sophisticated comedy was put to use on Bewitched in 1967. In "Charlie Harper, Winner," she played Daphne Harper, the attractive wife of Darrin's obnoxiously successful old college acquaintance Charlie, played by Angus Duncan. Moore stepped comfortably into one of the decade's defining sitcoms opposite Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York.
ABC Television, Wikimedia Commons
Countdown
Robert Altman's early feature Countdown (1968) offered Moore another interesting movie role, this time opposite James Caan and Robert Duvall in a story about America's desperate attempt to put an astronaut on the Moon before the Soviet Union. Moore played Mickey Stegler, wife of Caan's astronaut Lee Stegler.
Screenshot from Countdown, Warner Bros.–Seven Arts, Inc. (1968)
Never A Dull Moment
Moore returned to Disney comedy in Jerry Paris' Never a Dull Moment (1968). Dick Van Dyke starred as an actor mistaken for a professional killer and pulled into a gangster's elaborate scheme. Moore played Melanie Smooth, alongside Edward G. Robinson, Dorothy Provine, Henry Silva, Slim Pickens and Jack Elam.
United Archives , Getty Images
The Seventies Were Different
Moore continued working as the new decade began, appearing on series including McCloud, The Waltons, Kung Fu, Police Story, Petrocelli and The Blue Knight. She also appeared in The Hindenburg (1975). But the steady stream of substantial opportunities that had characterized the 1960s was slowing, while alcohol and drug problems increasingly complicated her life.
Fotos International, Getty Images
Personal Troubles Took Their Toll
Moore had married actor Ryan O'Neal in 1963, and they became parents to Tatum and Griffin O'Neal before divorcing in 1967. Her struggles with alcohol and drugs contributed to a bitter and complicated custody battle with O'Neal, who ultimately assumed primary care of the children. By the late 1970s, those problems were taking an unmistakable toll on both her personal life and career.
Fotos International, Getty Images
Remember The Career
After 1976, Moore made only two further screen appearances, including the television movie Scout's Honor (1980), before her final screen work in 1986. Diagnosed with lung cancer in 1996, she died on November 22, 1997, at 63. Her ending was sad, but it shouldn't eclipse an extraordinary run that made Joanna Moore one of the most popular and versatile guest actresses of 1960s television.
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